


Where You Can Be Reborn

by Fudgyokra



Series: BruDick Week 2020 [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Fantasizing, M/M, Multiverse, Pet Names, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, resolved sexual tension but not between the prime earth duo, they're in more of a will-they-won't-they limbo state
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22482862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: Dick has always wanted to do this with Bruce. He just wishes it was withhisBruce, and not the uppity billionaire brat from the next universe over.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne
Series: BruDick Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610485
Comments: 37
Kudos: 165
Collections: BruDick Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Day 7: ~~Forbidden Love~~ | ~~Creator’s Choice~~ | BruDick meet their AU’selves
> 
> I’m diverging from the angst wave I’ve been riding this week in order to write some straight-up porn, lol. Took me a while to choose between doing another nasty Earth-3 crossover or doing this, but I decided I wanted to close out the challenge with something light. :)
> 
> There is no canon Earth I went with for the alternate-universe Bruce and Dick, but they’re basically just current B&D’s more happy-go-lucky counterparts. I did draw a lot of inspiration for their Bruce from Batman 2011, though.
> 
> Title and lyrics from Troye Sivan’s [BITE.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZSbLmYlh6o)

_The rapture in the dark puts me at ease,_ _  
_ _The blind eye of the storm._

Dick doesn’t really like to end his day by getting sucked into a suspicious time vortex. That is, of course, putting it mildly, but no amount of complaining will save him or Bruce from the situation in which they’ve found themselves yet again. He wonders if the Speedsters even have to deal with this kind of stuff as often as they do. It gets old, fast.

The strange thing about this time is that, when the light of their impromptu interdimensional travel dies down, they wind up in the same place they started. Dubiously, he cocks his head while he considers the familiar, looming face of Wayne Manor, confused as to why the sudden and dizzying beam of light had bothered to take them anywhere at all if it was just going to return them home. He briefly entertains the idea of it being some sort of alien prank, but before he can relay this joke to Bruce, who is standing beside him glaring at the screen built into his gauntlet, the front door swings open with Alfred manning its handle.

“Oh, dear,” the man says. Yeah, Dick can empathize with that.

They are ushered inside, where things look mostly the same as they do back home, with the exception of a couple rugs and paintings misplaced just enough to give off an Uncanny Valley vibe when confronting them.

Bruce sticks closely behind Dick, who follows Alfred toward the same wing of bedrooms that he used to stay in back at _their_ Manor. “I’m afraid we anticipated something like this happening,” Alfred says as he shows Dick the place he’ll apparently be staying tonight, should this universal oversight not be fixed in the coming hours. He then leads them into the room next door, which has been dubbed Bruce’s sleeping quarters, but they’re hardly paying attention until the butler adds, “There have been all sorts of strange goings-on lately. You two will hardly be the first to land on our doorstep, but you will be glad to know that this typically resolves itself, come morning.”

Finally, Bruce looks at Dick, who looks back with the same amount of dubiety reflected on his face. “All right,” the latter says, slowly, while he tries to figure out what the hell is going on, “and where might the rest of the household be while all this is happening?”

“Having their after-dinner desserts, sir. You’re welcome to join.”

“I don’t suppose there are already two extra place-mats set out,” Bruce says, flatly.

“In fact, there are.”

“Of course,” Dick mumbles. Dining with clones. Wonderful.

* * *

At first, he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. Or, he _does,_ but it’s so astounding that for a long time he can’t quite wrap his head around it.

He knows dessert with their alternate-universe counterparts isn’t going to be normal, but he also doesn’t expect to catch them mid-kiss at the table when they arrive. Apparently it’s just as much a routine for their meal time as saying Grace, according to Alfred, who leaves the four of them be after the introductions they don’t need have come and gone.

Several minutes of formal dining ensues, all proper clinks of forks and knives present, even though the two of them are staring at the other duo across from them with shell-shocked countenances that don’t seem to fade away.

Eventually, the other Bruce speaks. There’s something knowing in his tone that Dick doesn’t like, and if he can sense it, he is sure his own Bruce can, too. “Please, do try the cobbler. Alfred makes it exceptionally well.”

It feels absurd to try and eat after that, but they manage. There is still something that Dick can’t turn his attentions from, though. Either this universe has strange rules regarding etiquette, or the others are completely uncaring that their newcomers can see them playing games beneath the tablecloth quite plainly. At least, Dick can. A sideways glance at Bruce shows that the man is staring intently at his food while he eats.

But then, of course, the other Dick makes a soft keen of approval at a particular touch, and he snaps his head up, startled. Dick swears his heart stops beating for a moment.

Bruce doesn’t move his fork for several seconds. He had been mid-bite, but when the alternate versions of themselves start getting even more handsy, he can’t seem to move a muscle. Dick figures they’re both transfixed for opposite reasons, and Bruce’s can’t be anything shy of disgust. Dick’s reason is decidedly not that.

He has harbored an intense attraction for his mentor practically since he could _feel_ attraction, not to mention an even deeper feeling on top of that, which developed somewhere along the way. He’s pretty sure Bruce would be appalled to know, so he has always kept it to himself, but watching alternate-Bruce’s hand slide overtly across his own alternate self’s cheek to tangle fingers in his hair and pull him in for another very dinner-inappropriate kiss was like watching one of his wet dreams come to life. It would be funny if it weren’t so jarring. Would have also been way less embarrassing if Bruce wasn’t there to witness him flush all the way down to his neck at the display in a span of four seconds flat.

When alternate-Dick rises to head to the bedroom, alternate-Bruce whispers something in his ear with a conspiratorial smile curling his lips. Then, pulling away, says aloud, “Goodnight, angel. See you tomorrow.” There’s a resounding smack when a hand collides with his ass on the way out, but instead of appearing embarrassed or ashamed, alternate-Dick only laughs like it’s all very hilarious before retreating to the master bedroom. The master bedroom that also belongs to Bruce. So, that could only really mean one thing.

The dining area falls into dead silence, save for the sound of alternate-Bruce shoving food into his mouth and keeping on as if that didn’t just happen. After he swallows, he looks up, and instead of surprise or anything even remotely close to what Dick expects, he smirks and points his fork at him. “Oh, I apologize. I wrongfully presumed you two were comfortable with that sort of affection yourselves.”

Dick isn’t even eating anything when he almost chokes. It’s embarrassingly on his own tongue, which is a good enough save to turn the duty of responding to Bruce. _His_ Bruce.

“That’s…fine.” Seems to be all he can come up with. Dick can’t blame him. The poor man is paler than the cloth napkins.

Alt-Bruce senses the tension, obviously, but he’s also obviously an asshole, because he adds, “I had thought you two were also involved. Honest mistake, considering how close you seem.”

This time, Bruce looks beseechingly at Dick, and he realizes it’s his turn to deflect. A painfully stressed laugh bubbles out of him before any of his natural or trained talents can save him, which is the king of all bad signs, but he still trucks onward despite alt-Bruce’s lifted brow and his Bruce’s deep sigh.

“No, ah, I understand your confusion.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. His Bruce is looking at him now, and his shirt collar suddenly feels way too tight on his body. He resists the urge to pull at it, but only narrowly. “We’re…” There are several things he can say that will sound completely normal, rational, and non-humiliating, but, of course, he picks the one that is none of those things: “Complicated.”

His Bruce makes no sound at all, and Dick is terrified to check his expression for confirmation of his likely anger. Or worse, confusion, like he might not have _known_ Dick feels something for him that may or may not begin with the letter “L.”

Alt-Bruce looks like a cat that caught the canary. “I see.” Oh, god, Dick thinks; he’s doomed. He has heard about people wanting to melt into the floor, but he has never felt that way before now. Brushing off indiscretions is usually easy for him, but this is all too much.

“Y’know,” he all but croaks, “I think I’m gonna hit the hay, too.” But the moment he says it, he can see his Bruce stiffen in his seat, and he realizes how horrible it would be to leave him behind with the counterpart that had just flagrantly sexually flirted with his ward.

 _Sucks_ _for him._ Dick rises anyway and jerks a thumb over his shoulder to point toward the bedroom he has been assigned for their temporary stay. He feels sort of bad for ditching, but he can’t stand the heat anymore.

“I think we’ll both be retiring for tonight,” Bruce says, obviously distressed. Then he makes matters ten times worse. “…Separately.”

Alt-Bruce’s mouth turns upward at one corner in a stupidly handsome, stupidly _annoying_ smirk. “I gathered.”

Bruce pushes his chair in like a gentleman and takes off without another word, and Dick registers that this must be his way of getting back at him for threatening to leave him behind. Of course he would rush to be the first to do it, the bastard.

That, of course, leaves Dick with the cocky counterpart, who is looking at him with an expression so hungry and obvious that the flush on his face now feels like it’s eating him alive.

“I can show you to your room, if you’d like.”

Dick has already been shown where it is. He knows exactly what alt-Bruce is asking. There are a million things to consider, from _they could be evil clones_ to _his Bruce might walk in,_ but no amount of logical reasoning can stop him from freezing in his tracks to consider.

Just his pause is enough for the Bruce he’s left with to hum approvingly and stand to take the offer into his own hands. He leads him down the hall civilly, all things considered, even going as far as to open the door and extend his arm into the room with polite showmanship. “The bedding is fresh, courtesy of Alfred. I’m sure you know how he likes things to be tip-top.”

“Yeah,” Dick returns flatly, not really listening. When he sweeps his gaze automatically around the room, methodically checking for cameras or mics like he has been trained to do, Bruce does not move. He must have been waiting for an answer.

What Dick wants and what is probably the morally correct option are at war. He turns back to face the man, eyes narrowed. “Are you and, uh”—it feels weird to say _he_ but weirder to say _I_ —“Dick together? Isn’t this, I dunno, improper?”

Bruce still has that smug look on his face. “What is ‘this’? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Dick weighs the words on his tongue. “Well, I’m waiting very impatiently for you to help me mess up this nice new bedding. So far you’ve disappointed.”

It feels freeing. Finally, a victory. Bruce’s brows shoot up, soon to lower mischievously as he presses the door shut behind himself and grins. Dick hasn’t seen an expression like that on the man since he was a child, and it certainly wasn’t for the reason it’s there now.

“Aren’t you a bit worried he can hear you say that, angel?”

Dick flinches, equal parts due to the nickname and the idea that Bruce is listening. He doesn’t really want a reminder he’s doing this with a technical stranger—one who is ostensibly taken, at that—but he’s doing it anyway. He’s desperate and has been since the moment he caught them kissing the first time.

“Don’t call me that,” he says, finally, not acknowledging the actual concern. “It’s weird for you to call me the name of your…”

“My…?” God, Dick hates this bastard, just a bit.

“Your boyfriend?” He tries. It sounds bizarre.

Bruce snorts. “He’s my significant other, not my arm candy. And he won’t mind us doing this, I can assure you.”

“Why, because you’ve talked about it before?” Dick is dubious about the likelihood of that, then weighs it for a split-second against the mysterious reason they ended up here. Surely it wasn’t because an interdimensional copy of themselves wanted to bang other versions, right? That would just be ridiculous.

“We discussed it at dinner.”

Dick recalls the whisper they had shared and flushes. “Right in front of us?”

He is ignored. “Would you like to do this?”

His brain’s still spinning a mile a minute. At first, he’s reluctant to agree, but it’s not because he doesn’t want to. Contrarily, Dick has always wanted to do this with Bruce. He just wishes it was with _his_ Bruce, and not the uppity billionaire brat from the next universe over. This arrogant boy-next-world type is not similar enough to his own to be properly satisfying, but he doesn’t know if that’s less weird or not.

But then, Bruce says, far too casually, “I’m sure my boy is in there right now propositioning your, ah, _frien_ _d._ I haven’t heard any slamming doors or stomping feet yet, so I assume it’s going well.”

Dick’s blood feels hot and cold at the same time. For whatever reason, the thought of that happening right under his nose exhilarates him more than it makes him jealous, which is not a sensation he expects. His lips part to agree before Bruce closes the distance between them and puts his hands on Dick’s hips to pull him close. It takes away his voice, but that doesn’t really matter when Bruce kisses him stupid, anyway.

“You didn’t give me a chance to answer,” he says, embarrassingly breathless.

“Your face told me all I needed to know.” Bruce grins; Dick rolls his eyes. Asshole. “But I understand, and I won’t go any further until you give me the say-so.” Wait,Dick thinks with a vague sense of panic. So, now he has to beg for it? God, he really wanted to deck this guy. The worst part is that it is horribly, horribly arousing to be put in this position. Now he can’t stop thinking about how it would feel for his stubborn control-freak of a mentor to make him beg. That isn’t a mental image he’s going to erase any time soon.

“I—fuck, okay. I’m saying yes.”

“Yes to what?”

Two can play that game. In fact, he’s reasonably sure he can play it better than this little rich boy. He allows his expression to change, half-lidded eyes flickering up to hold Bruce’s gaze, then back down to his mouth when Dick grabs him by the lapels and tugs him that much closer, only a hair’s breadth away. He tilts his head and whispers, “I want you on your back in that bed so I can ride you ‘til you can’t see straight.”

Little rich boy is neither little nor a boy, and he abruptly metamorphoses into the proper demeanor the second Dick’s on board. It sends a shiver through his entire body from the bottom up, especially when Bruce kisses him again, this time far from gentle.

Dick doesn’t need a reminder of his size, but Bruce is happy to remind him by crowding him back against the bed until he bounces back on the mattress, boxed in by the giant frame and pinned hard while he’s practically being devoured. Faintly, he thinks _hey, this isn’t how I asked,_ but then he can’t form a single thought when Bruce gets a hand between his legs and squeezes him through his jeans.

“You’re more than ready for it, I see,” Bruce teases, voice pulling Dick’s body into an arch like an invisible tether.

He remembers he has pride, but shelves that for a time when he isn’t gift-wrapped an opportunity like this. His _yes_ comes out with a sibilant hiss as he wiggles his hips invitingly, hands already clenched in the sheets before Bruce even gets his pants off. The second they’re deposited on the floor, Dick wraps his legs around the man’s waist and drags him in for another kiss, relishing in the satisfying slide in case he never gets anything like it again.

Briefly, he wonders if this would spoil him for his universe’s Bruce later, then realizes that isn’t going to happen. If it did, by some miracle (is this universe’s Dick in there right now doing this?), he imagines his version acts a lot differently than this one.

This one, for one thing, bites. However he pictured sex with Bruce to go, the amount of blood drawn doesn’t quite match up. Sure, he’s rough with the criminals, but from all the Hollywood harping, he gathers that Bruce is exceptionally attentive and gentle with his lovers. Suffice it to say this counterpart is not.

Dick growls against his mouth before pulling away and flipping them over, Bruce going easily like he expects as much. Before he does anything else, Dick grinds his hips down against the other’s lap, too many layers separating them still, but one less than before. Getting undressed is like a huge puzzle; it takes too long, but the end result is so satisfying that he just wants to stare down at Bruce all night long.

Well, scratch that. He really, really doesn’t. He wants to _feel_ all of that, and fast. He has waited this long, and tonight is apparently the end of his proverbial rope. “You got lube?” he breathes, already climbing into position and grinding back against Bruce’s cock, a shiver running through him every time the head catches properly on his rim. “Don’t make me wait all night, old man.”

Bruce’s brow ticks upward before he crosses his arms behind his head and goes, “Do you even need anything? You seem perfectly ready to me.”

Dick means to growl, but what comes out is a choked whine against Bruce’s neck. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I want you to feel me for _days,_ so you won’t forget how desperate you were for it.”

Dick hisses a less-than-convincing “Shut up” before leaning over to paw in the bedside table’s drawer himself. While he shuffles through linens and displaces everything in his haste, Bruce rubs the pads of two fingers over his hole and, without warning, slides the tip of one inside. From this position, with his ass in the air and his front half down in the sheets, the surprised lurch he gives doesn’t get him anywhere except close to banging his skull on the headboard. Smooth. He can’t risk jerking again, so he makes himself stay still when the finger sinks inside him dry, feeling bigger than it is, even if he relaxes instinctively for it.

“Keep looking,” Bruce says, annoyingly smug. “I’m sure it’s in there.” When he slips out from underneath him, removing his finger in the process, Dick gets the idea that the lubricant he’s looking for isn’t in the end table at all, and Bruce is just fucking with him. At first, metaphorically. Then, while Dick still has his hips lifted without dignity like a damn dog, Bruce’s cock, slick and cool with the so-far missing lubricant, presses against his rim insistently.

Dick makes a strange noise in the back of his throat. “You’re a piece of work,” he mutters, trying to rise, only for one of Bruce’s hands to pin him down by the back of the neck. A thrill zips along his spine, and before it can even fully dissipate, Bruce shoves half his cock inside in one go and drags the most pitiful keen from him that he thinks he’s ever heard.

They haven’t prepared well and there’s an edge of pain to the presented stretch, but Dick has taken bigger, harder. This is nothing. In fact, this is _perfect._ Another moan, halfway smothered in the pillows, fights its way from him when Bruce pulls out to the head instead of giving him the rest. He opens his mouth to say something, but is suddenly unable to recall what it would have been when he’s slammed into, hard, after barely a second’s pause.

He cries out, and he knows there’s no way his Bruce doesn’t hear that from the next room over. The flush overtaking him doesn’t even have time to spread all the way before he’s being fucked into the mattress, each thrust brutal, until he downright aches with it. His mouth remains open, every sound an out-pour of desperation he can’t stifle. He wants to say something, but nothing even slightly coherent comes out—it’s simply moan after moan, and it’s all he can do to keep his head on straight with how roughly and suddenly he’s being fucked open.

Bruce stops, though, and the noise that Dick makes next is a downright whine. He feels the hand leave the back of his neck and rises to his elbows so he can level the man with his best displeased stare over his shoulder. Predictably, Bruce chuckles. “Is everything all right, angel?”

“Don’t—”

“Sorry. Force of habit.” Bruce layers himself over Dick’s back, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him up, seating him firmly against Bruce’s hips while he rocks into him in tiny, maddening circles. His cock seems to reach impossibly deeper and rubs against Dick’s inner walls with just enough sensation to keep his brain from coming fully back online. “What would you like me to call you?” the man asks, ruining Dick’s attempt at answering by using his free hand to rub between his legs, pulling first at his cock, then massaging his sac until he’s literally squirming on hands and knees searching for any sort of continuous sensation. The bursts of pleasure are beginning to get painful. He just wants to _cum._

“I don’t care,” he complains, cringing at the desperation in his voice. “Just move.” Pointedly, he rocks his hips backward, listening to the hiss of breath Bruce gives at the contact with a measure of satisfaction.

The trickle of pride he’s earned back dissipates when Bruce leans up and whispers against the nape of his neck. “What does _he_ call you?”

Even though Dick presses his lips into a line, a moan still makes it out, audible but muffled. He doesn’t really want to emotionally flay himself open for the sake of sex, but his fantasies don’t give him a choice. What is especially not helping is this version of Bruce insistently fiddling between his legs, leaving him stuffed full of cock with only crackles of feeling lighting up his nerves. It’s so, so good, and yet still not enough.

Well, there is _something,_ but it’s humiliating just to think, let alone say aloud. Dick has qualms about corrupting this innocent thing shared between he and his mentor, but it tumbles from his lips before he can even stop it: “Boy.”

Bruce makes a long, low hum as if he has caught him red-handed doing something he shouldn’t be. “I see,” he says, making Dick’s heartbeat skitter. “Is that what you want? To be his good little boy?”

He opens his mouth to deny it, but he has already dug his own grave just by putting the suggestion out there. Instead, he groans and surrenders himself to the burn of shame coursing through him. “Yes _s,_ ” he hisses, reaching around to claw at Bruce’s hip as if to pull him closer when there wasn’t any way for it to happen.

When Bruce retracts, pulling out of him with a soft, lewd sound, Dick’s impatience wins out, and he rolls over onto his back and hooks his legs around the man’s waist.

“You aren’t very well-behaved for someone who wants to be good,” Bruce comments with a touch of humor. He runs his hands up Dick’s ribs, feeling him up with a look of reverence that Dick wants to drown in but makes himself ignore.

“I don’t have to prove anything to you,” he answers.

Bruce hums, thumbing over the stiff peaks of Dick’s nipples until he’s shivering from the attention. “But you want to.” It isn’t a question.

He glares for all of five seconds before letting his legs drop, parting his thighs wider to allow access. He’s used to being in charge in the bedroom, so giving up the control feels a little like a dicey situation, but Bruce seems pleased by the behavior and rewards him by shoving his cock back in while Dick is spread and docile, and the overwhelming wave of satisfaction it brings is enough for him to consider the release of control a very good thing, indeed.

Bruce drags him up by the hips until he’s in the man’s lap, then folds him in half when he leans over and starts driving into him that much harder. With the new angle, his cock sinks in almost too deep on each downswing, every thrust punching the breath from Dick’s lungs until he’s gasping for air and twisting his hands in the sheets on either side of his quivering body.

Overheated and near to drooling, he can feel everything tense in anticipation of orgasm, and Bruce helps it along handily with the way he is snapping his hips like some feral beast, growling over him when he pulls Dick back onto his cock for a particularly rough dive.

Dick moans at an embarrassing decibel when Bruce wraps a hand around him and strokes, curled almost possessively over him as he pants, “Good…good boy. You’re going to cum for me, aren’t you, Dick?”

And Dick does without warning, spasming around Bruce’s cock with his brows furrowed and his head thrown back in the pillows. The way Bruce keeps up the punishing pace feels incredible, and at first he doesn’t notice the way his eyes roll back until Bruce grits out a pleased, “That’s a pretty face you’re making for me, sweetheart,” and the words light Dick up with aftershocks until he’s shaking so hard he can’t stop for several seconds.

By the time he relaxes, he can feel Bruce pulsing, painting his insides with cum while he murmurs how tight and hot he feels, how well-behaved he has been.

Dick is _floating._ He can’t catch his breath for a long time, and it’s a wonderful sensation to be so relaxed under the man’s gaze, even once he slips out of Dick’s ruined hole and watches with a measure of pride as it leaks cum onto the sheets.

Bruce squeezes his knee with a particular kind of fondness, and that, absurdly, is what makes him flush darker. Suddenly, the only thing he can think of is how he’s gonna have to face his Bruce tomorrow when they inevitably find a way back home. He already feels the awkward shame creeping into his chest, but he dutifully shoves it aside for now.

“Thanks,” he murmurs against the nearest pillow. His lashes are already fluttering sleepily, even though he knows he needs to shower the mess away. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”

“Oh, I had an inkling,” Bruce replies, voice dripping with self-satisfaction.

Dick is glad for his eyes being closed so he doesn’t have to bother rolling them.

* * *

Bruce still hears the fake Dick’s voice ringing in his ears well into the next morning. Filthy words and soft moans and pretty sighs. He still can’t believe he let himself do what he did, no matter how innocuous it seemed at the time and no matter how well Dick begged.

He shakes his head faintly when the sounds _his_ Dick had been making all night start to eke in past the edges of the first daydream. Can’t think about that right now.

Their way home is in the form of another conveniently-timed lurch through the fabric of reality, but arriving safely back at their Manor feels less like a victory than he wants it to feel, mostly because he can’t stop replaying last night like a rewound cassette.

When Dick clears his throat and thanks him for getting them home, all Bruce can hear for several humiliating seconds is the high-pitched whine the fake Dick had made when he shook apart on his cock the second Bruce accidentally called him _boy._

He grunts that it wasn’t a problem and watches with a measure of relief when Dick pads away looking somewhat dazed. It gives him a second to slump in his chair and think about the implications of everything that has happened before Dick pokes his head around the seat’s back and says, “Hey, you’re okay, right?”

“I’m fine,” he replies, tone clipped.

There is a suspiciously satisfied edge to Dick’s voice when he retreats again and calls over his shoulder as he leaves, “Good to know, B. Wouldn’t want you to angst over such a fun vacation.”

Bruce grumbles at the word choice and sequesters himself to his study so he can stew in his brand new jumble of warring emotions.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The same night from Bruce's POV! Edited very quickly, so please excuse any mistakes. ;;w;;

_Don’t you wanna see a man up close?_ _  
_ _A phoenix in the fire._

There is a phenomenally long list of things Bruce does not like about today. He has seen probabilities both in figure tables and in reality, different versions of everyone and everything from more universes than most people will ever encounter. This one’s admittedly a little jarring, and not for the typical reasons.

For one thing, this place’s Alfred has hung a piece of abstract art where his own keeps a canvas print. His version’s design proclivities are obviously better honed. Bruce can see Dick eyeing a profoundly ugly rug from his peripheral, which is enough for him to gather the opinion is shared. But, this Alfred is kind enough to explain things to the best of his knowledge, and he introduces them to their counterparts in a pointless but admittedly polite display, so Bruce supposes he can’t be all bad.

The big thing (or, actually, several little things stemming from the same source) greets him during dessert with about as much subtlety as a backhand to the face. It almost feels like one to notice the faint twitches of muscle in the other Bruce’s arm, where his hand disappears beneath the tablecloth at just an obvious enough angle that it is clear what he’s doing to the man sitting beside him.

Dick looks up at his mentor with unmasked adoration, jolting enough on its own without the sound he makes at a particular level of attention. By then, Bruce can no longer pretend he hasn’t been noticing the games they’re playing and looks up holding his fork, still loaded with bits of dessert, midway between the plate and his mouth.

His universe’s Dick has been giving him sly glances to gauge his reactions the entire time, but now he’s staring at the duo on the other side of the table with a hardly-noticeable widening to his eyes that gives him away. Bruce knows they are both transfixed for opposite reasons, and Dick’s isn’t anything shy of disgust. Bruce’s reason is...not that.

There is something regrettably alluring about having this untested reality dangled in front of him while he watches, rooted, as false Bruce gets a hand in his companion’s (reassess: lover’s) hair and pries the soft moan out of him with his tongue.

No matter how interesting it is to contemplate how this relationship has built itself, the horror of the situation is knowing that Dick sees and hears as much as Bruce does when their counterparts whisper suggestively to each other and the younger half leaves their party with a smack on the backside that is inappropriate for any sort of company. It’s as if the Brucie Wayne persona from his world had manifested itself as a real person, and no matter how well-received the touch is, Bruce feels affronted by the rude gesture on the other Dick’s behalf.

_“Goodnight, angel. See you tomorrow.”_

He doesn’t like the tawdry nickname, either.

What he _really_ doesn’t like, though, is when the man pins him with a wicked smirk and a pair of snake eyes, then suggests Bruce and Dick’s closeness meant they share the same type of relationship. Even if that _had_ been true, he likes to think himself above rude touches at the damn table, especially when others are present. But he supposes that’s not really the point false-Bruce is trying to make.

Dick awkwardly laughs and says he understands the confusion. He also calls their relationship “complicated,” and Bruce has never thought that about them until the word is dropped in the air between them. He can’t say a thing in defense of himself or the things they’ve been through together, but every innocent moment they’ve ever shared suddenly peels back, layer after layer. What’s complicated is the sudden dose of guilt he gets at the idea he has done something _wrong._

Retiring to his temporary sleeping quarters turns a rough ride into an even bigger nightmare.

He has been pacing for ten minutes straight when the door opens. There’s not a single sound, not even a creak, but Bruce feels the new presence in the room like a blanket that has been thrown on top of him.

“What do you want?” he asks.

Turning around, he finds the alternate Dick leaning on the doorjamb dressed only in a T-shirt several sizes too big for him. He has his arms crossed over the logo, but Bruce doesn’t have to see it to know it’s an old Van Halen band shirt from back in the day when Bruce wore that sort of thing. It has been a long time on his end, but he suspects the other might still fancy it. At least, he would fancy it on Dick, because, well—who wouldn’t?

“I figure you’ve got questions,” Dick answers, like that simple reason is why he is here. His mouth is a serious line, but his eyes are shining bright. There’s no way Bruce could miss it.

“I do,” he says anyway, which is as much an invitation for the man to come inside as he’s going to get.

It works. Dick steps over the threshold and shuts the door, turning fully toward it to show off the lift of one bare foot as he rubs it against the back of the opposite calf.

Bruce glances down before he can remind himself this could be some outlandish death trap. “You know how we got warped here, don’t you?”

Dick faces him again, brows lifted over a surefire smirk. “You’re paranoid.”

“I’m right.”

“And I bet you’re seldom anything but.” Bruce grunts, which Dick must take as an affirmation, because he snorts a laugh. “Do you wanna talk about that all night, or do you wanna fuck?”

To his credit, that certainly catches Bruce off-guard. He opens his mouth, expecting an easy answer to fall back on, and comes up blank.

“Ooh,” Dick says, amused, “that wasn’t the _no_ I expected.”

Bruce just had the same thought, actually. Something’s really off about this. He narrows his eyes, beginning to size up the possible threat from the bottom up like he normally would, only to get jarred by bare skin all over again and snap his eyes in a display of shame prematurely back to Dick’s face, which is now sunny and smug.

“You aren’t making a fantastic case for your innocence,” he says at last, because falling back on the comforting habit of suspicion fits like a glove.

“Maybe I’m not innocent,” Dick replies automatically, tone dripping with innuendo as he approaches and starts to slide an arm around his waist. Bruce catches his wrist in a second, jerking it upward to check for a dagger or tracker that isn’t there. Dick blinks, unamused. “I’m not trying to kill you, jackass.”

“Then what?”

Dick tilts his head like an absurdly adorable kitten. “Really? Are you serious?” When Bruce lets him go and says nothing, the man actually _pouts._ “Wow, most of the time they’re all over me by now. You’re no fun.”

He sits back on the bed and plants his palms on the cover so he can recline, shirt riding just high enough to prove there is nothing on underneath. Abruptly, Bruce looks away. There is a lot to discuss with the information he has been given, but the thing he fixates on is the purported fact of this relationship apparently working across multiple dimensions.

No, he thinks, stopping himself before he can make any excuses for himself and the horrible way he wants this to happen—this is a very elaborate attempt at murder. Or blackmail. But then he sees the look of annoyance being leveled at him and can’t help but crave a little danger. It isn’t like this would be the first time he chose sex over logic, but he tries to avoid it when he isn’t completely assured of his escape route.

Dick catches him surveying and perks up, spreading his thighs wider where he sits. He does make a convincing argument, even tacking on a pretty, “Please?” like he’s genuinely worried he may be shot down. And not literally, like the way Bruce fears _he_ might be. “It would be pretty uncool if B gets to play with your friend and I have to slink back to our bedroom with my tail between my legs. Just sayin’.”

Bruce lifts an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you know—” As if to prove his point, there is a loud, high-pitched wail from next door that sends threads of ice through each and every capillary in Bruce’s body. He doesn’t thaw for several seconds, even once alternate Dick starts snickering from behind the palm pressed to his mouth. “Do you think he’s in trouble?” he teases.

That was certainly _not_ a sound of distress, which both of them know. There’s a faint rocking noise as the bed’s old springs creak. Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Is there an ulterior motive here I am not understanding?” That has to be it.

Dick snorts. “If there were, I wouldn’t tell you, baby.”

Bruce’s hand drops to scrub somewhat despairingly around his jaw. From above the U created by his thumb and forefinger, he squints at Dick, mapping out the movement of every muscle as the man tugs the hem of his T-shirt up his thighs, making the visible semi-hardness of his cock indisputable. Whether it’s from the mere thought of getting away with his scheme or the bizarre cuckoldry or both, Bruce can’t be sure.

“Don’t call me that,” he answers at last. It comes out like a weary confession, and Dick’s shark grin means he knows he’s got him.

“Gee, I’d have invited them in here if I knew a little proof was what you needed.” Bruce presses his lips into a line, but Dick keeps going, gesturing vaguely with one hand as he does. “Or if it’s just how nice he sounds when he moans…” He gets on his knees in the bed, grasping at Bruce’s arm to coerce him down beside him. “ _I_ can do plenty of that.”

“I’d prefer it if you kept quiet.”

Dick snorts, scooting back on the covers to make room for Bruce to settle a knee between his legs. “Charming. Don’t want any reminders of who you’re screwing?” Something wicked flashes in his eyes. “Or do you not want him to _know_ you’re being naughty with his look-alike?”

Truthfully, he hadn’t really put much stock in what Dick might think about this, but now that he is, the entire situation makes him feel dirtier. Before it can veer any further south, he pushes aside the new emotions to join the slew of others he will be dealing with later. It’s just sex, he thinks—it doesn’t have to be psychoanalytical.

Dick hangs his weight off Bruce’s shoulders to lower himself on the mattress. “So, which is it, then?”

Bruce doesn’t know. He doesn’t like not knowing, but he _does_ like the sharp gasp of breath Dick draws when he catches his chin between thumb and forefinger and tips his head back into the sheets. “Quiet,” he demands, and sees that Dick has every intention of disobeying if the glint in his eye is anything to go on. Bruce can handle that, and does with a firm kiss, the weight of his upper half pressing down to hold him still.

Dick squirms an awful lot, and it takes Bruce a moment to register that he’s trying to rock his hips against him. Impatient. For a split-second of running on instinct, he growls against Dick’s throat, moving lower to encourage the surprised noises out of him. His lover must not be big on foreplay.

“Not fair,” Dick says when Bruce gets teeth around a nipple and drags, avoiding the bite but giving the suggestion of it with the pressure. He continues gliding lower, enjoying the way fingers tighten in his hair, holding him steady while he leaves hickeys in a descending trail.

Next door, their counterparts are hard at work in proving the structural integrity of the old bed frame, and every groan of wood accompanies a needy sound from his version of Dick, making this harder than it needs to be. Without realizing it at first, he growls, the clench of his teeth unable to stifle it. Dick laughs softly, _fondly,_ which only makes Bruce’s chest ache with more misplaced feelings.

In the coming seconds, he finds himself being flipped on his back, reeling for only a moment before he drags Dick down into another kiss to silence whatever quip he has queued.

Dick allows himself to be moved around and teased with Bruce’s tongue until his impatience finally wins. He spreads his thighs and sits himself on the tip of Bruce’s cock, a film of slickness between his legs suggestive of prior preparation. Bruce almost accuses him of being desperate for it until Dick sinks down the first half of his length with a sound so lewd that all he can do in response is hiss in satisfaction. He grasps those perfect hips and makes Dick take the rest of him. Even then, all he does is give a throaty groan that Bruce swears is purposefully overemphasized. Then again, maybe he really is just this loud in bed. Hard to tell.

The teasing words fight their way out of him of their own volition: “You look good like that.”

Dick’s grin is wide, sharp, and _predatory._ He mouths sloppily at Bruce’s jaw, then whispers in his ear, “Oh, I know, Mister Wayne.”

Bruce pistons his hips up into him and cuts Dick’s gasp off with a hand pressed over his mouth, covering his chin. He feels each breath punched out of him as they move, desperately grinding like they’re teenagers frotting at a party. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so fulfilling, striking a chord so deep in him he can’t help the growl that slithers out from between his teeth, long and low as he jabs repeatedly into the other’s awaiting heat.

Dick paws Bruce’s hand away from his mouth and simply holds onto it, a bizarrely intimate touch that sets every inch of Bruce’s skin on fire. “You afraid—we’re gonna—run out of time—big guy?” he jokes, panting half of the words and moaning the rest.

Bruce doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he shoves his thumb between Dick’s teeth and pushes down on his tongue, listening to his heaved-out little _ah_ sounds as he bounces in his lap, jerking every so often with a pressure that is rapidly mounting.

He can feel the man twitch around his cock, which should have been a fair enough warning that he can escape this encounter without opening his damn mouth. Would certainly save him some pride. Instead, he uses his free hand to drag Dick down hard on an upward jolt and hisses a pleased, “That’s it, boy. Good job, come on—”

Dick downright whines, thighs wobbling for the long seconds it takes him to ride out his orgasm, a sudden crash that seems to surprise even him, going by the fluttering of his lashes and the vaguely startled noise he makes after the fact. In a small voice, he says, “ _Oh…_ ” It makes Bruce’s heart thump a bit harder than he thinks it ought to. “I usually don’t…not before you,” he concludes, tacking on a breathless laugh.

It does buy back an ounce of Bruce’s ego, that’s for sure.

“That’s all right,” he says, tipping Dick onto his back. “You have plenty of time to earn it before I give you another one.”

Dick laughs, louder this time, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Someone’s getting cocky.”

Bruce makes a vague _hrm_ sound in response and runs a hand up Dick’s thigh when he hoists it upward, encouraging those pretty, bare legs to wrap around him. Once they’re secured, ankles crossed tightly, he starts to move again.

Dick’s more relaxed now, moaning sweetly into the sheets until the over-stimulation catches up to him, and by then he’s clawing Bruce down by the shoulders so aggressively he knows there are going to be marks. It’s worth it just to hear all of his noises transform, with time, from soft and satisfied to shrill and needy all over again.

Bruce spends barely any time at all touching his cock before he earns another beautiful display; Dick arches straight off the bed and lets himself go a second time, apparently uninhibited by games of holding out, which seem to be the norm in his bedroom. He’s open-mouthed panting this time, choking on desperate sounds and completely red in the face with his pleasure, squirming from the continued attention until, finally, Bruce can’t hold out any longer. Master of mind and body, indeed. He can only stand so much of Dick looking that gorgeous beneath him, and that’s to say little of how good he feels.

He doesn’t realize he has said something aloud until he’s done gritting his teeth through his own finish, and it’s not well until he has stopped shivering that he notices Dick biting his lip to stifle a grin.

“What?” he halfway slurs. Frankly, he’s dizzy.

“You said…something important.”

Bruce blinks once, twice. Feels the phantom sting of a certain unfortunate confession resting on his lips. He closes his eyes, sits up, pinches the bridge of his nose. “For the sake of this encounter, let’s pretend I didn’t.”

Dick’s expression softens, which Bruce doesn’t like one bit, if only because it makes him feel even more cornered. “All right,” he agrees, “but, at least in this universe, the feeling’s mutual.”

Politely, Bruce does not mention how this does not help his case at all. “Thanks,” he deadpans. Already, he dreads tomorrow.

* * *

_“_ _Wouldn’t want you to angst over such a fun vacation.”_

Even back in his own proper reality, Bruce’s brain feels like it has not completely come back online. Each thought arrives slowly, as if he were experiencing jet lag. The casual statement Dick— _his_ Dick—leaves him with helps matters about as much as sandpaper helps an open wound.

His first sentiment is that he would like to put all of this behind him, but the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if burying this is going to be as easy as he hopes.

Somehow, he doubts it.


End file.
